I have an idea!!!! Aran we need this pushed...

I'm on the side of the players unless you are envious of owners like Dan Gilbert who is turning his team into a cash cow without LeBron James (google Dan Gilbert Casinos)... Well even with that I am proposing a solution to end this lockout and provide more evidence on the future of the NBA...

The players SHOULD agree to a 50/50 split BUT shorten the CBA to 2 years... This will do a couple of things... If the league is becoming profitable again (last year saw a spike) then taking 2 years to prove the owners are making more money will help the players cause... If it doesn't the owners keep the 2%... So basically test out the new business model and everyone wins... The players only take a hit for 2 years but get a chance to revisit it... But the most important thing is getting the guys back on the court so I can be entertained... No one is actually losing money because making the CBA isn't really for the current players, its for the future ones... 2 years will give you more time to hash this out so a lock out will never happen again..

No more threats!!! Only results Mr. Stern...

Aran you have a couple of contacts in NBA offices just throw out shortening the CBA because clearly the sides can't seem to agree on the current proposal...

The hardline owners still want 53:47 in their favour and a lot of players want 52.5:47.5 in their favour so a lot of people are still 5.5 points apart. The more conciliatory on both sides are perhaps looking at 50:50 and for a long time I personally thought that the deal may be done at 51:49 to the players. This way the owners get back 6 percentage points but the players still keep over 50% so both sides can claim a moral victory.

However now I cannot see the owners going to 51% for the players and whilst the owners may consider 50:50 their best offer I cannot see the players going down to 50% so I do wonder if the end deal may be say 49:9:50:1 in favour of the players. This way the owners have near enough got 7% back whilst the players still have just over 50%. If this was done on a longer term deal then the players have not got to wory about the owners coming back for more in the next couple of years and the deal should help to wipe out most of the teams accumulated losses.

The players main argument is that the owners are trying to recoup too much... If the players deceritfy from the union and take this to court by the time they actually get this handled we would barely have a season... Honestly playing 50 games will be far fetched by then... This is the most logical scernario IMO... Unless players can withstand a season without pay? Which I'm incline to think they can not.... MJ saying what he said is only a bluff to get the players to cave... This 50/50 proposal will be there but is a lot to swallow when the owners made faulty investments... It's not the players responsibilty to make sure the owners are making sound business decisions... They already gave them a total of $700 miliion per year... $400 million will be a profit... And this is saying if the economic climate remains the same...

@ "Proud" I haven't really posted on this site as of late but I was dead serious in the 2 year CBA... This isn't something that HAVE to be completely done now... This will help the NBA save face and have a season while trying to collect more data to bring to the bargining table... Realistically will it happen? No... But it's the only logical way at this point, they are too far apart... The players are NOT caving to 50/50, but making the CBA shorter they might agree to that...

No one in their right mind will agree to a 10 year deal where you are getting shafted because of the faulty business models by majority of the owners... 51/49 isn't going to work either because the owners aren't acting in good faith right now... They aren't negotiating they are threatening, which is now something should be handled in court... IMO the union should have been decertified as soon as owners said 50/50 take it or leave it... Now they are rushing to sign a petition in November? Really? They should have been did this ish...

Clearly that part was a joke but the 2 years wasn't... How about you provide an educated answer to all this hoopla instead of chiming in with ridiculous banter? If you have a better plan then lets hear it? Obviously you do not so move along...

I don't have a clue what they should do Billy Hunter Jr but nor do I really give a shit, just hope to see some ball at some point and if not this College Basketball season should be way more entertaining than the NBA is anyway, so to be honest I don't really care all that much if they play this year or not.

Obviously you do care so good luck with that and with getting Aran and all his "contacts" involved with your cause

I only commented on the stupidness of your last sentence, nothing about your "solution" to the lockout Johnnie Cochran. But you seem to be the guy who could end this lockout so get your ass up here to NY ASAP and make sure to bring Aran with you so he can pull some strings and make it happen. I wish you nothing but success with all of your future endeavors.

Unions were founded on Socialist principles devived from Karl Marx but I agree that not a whole lot of NBA players would be socialists. In the UK we have a Conservative lead coalition government and a Labour ( Socialist) opposition but even that has moved to the right in recent years and it is always a joke that Democrats are right wing with Republicans further right.

My politics would be more Republican than Democrat if I based it on the US system and rich socialists who can afford to have a conscience do always annoy me.

Back to the CBA, has anyone heard what the proposed length would be or does that depend on who can extract conssssions from whom eg the players get a slightly better deal so the owners want a shorter CBA to try and get an even better del next time or the owners get a good deal and want a long CBA but the players want a shorter one to try and get a few things back next time.

No-one can guess what the financial landscape would be in 5 to 10 years time as the economic climate, state governments, tax laws etc can all change in that time.